smart thinking about sex, intimacy, and life in a body

SEXUAL HEALTH: sex therapy for wounded veterans

In an article by Joseph Jaafari posted online May 12, The Atlantic covered creative therapies that are teaching veterans with genital injuries alternative ways to be intimate. “While all Veterans Affairs hospitals offer Occupational Therapy, which includes sexual therapy, the VA Long Beach Healthcare System in southern California and Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, are unique in that they have introduced courses and counseling focused on this issue. The programs offer guidance as veterans recover from genital wounds, and are part of an increasing effort by the military to both address these injuries and protect soldiers from them in the future.”

The article focuses on the treatment of a former U.S. Marine Corps staff sergeant named Timothy Brown. “Post-recovery, Brown has taken a different approach to sex than he had before—shifting the emphasis from his personal satisfaction to insuring that his partner enjoys the experience. ‘I went from being self-centered to trying to encompass everything for the both of us,’ he says. ‘Simple things like feeling [his partner’s] body, feeling their muscles when you hit the right spot.’ While he developed this outlook on his own, he notes that the program enabled him to feel more secure in his sexual life.”

Army Spec. Chris Smith, a soldier from the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Fort Drum, sits in The Different Drummer Internet Cafe in Watertown, New York April 16, 2008. The Different Drummer is a place where soldiers both active and discharged can go for support, counseling or just to socialize. Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division are among those who’ve spent most time in Iraq and Afghanistan, making its base at Fort Drum a “canary in a coal mine” for a looming crisis of post-traumatic stress disorder. Picture taken on April 16, 2008. Photo by Mark Dye

The article notes that “Brown’s approach is exactly what occupational therapists at Walter Reed have tried to teach other injured soldiers. Within the hospital there is a sexual health and intimacy service that focuses on education and therapy. According to Brown, therapy sessions were de facto sex classes that included sex toys aimed at stimulating different parts of the body. Officials at Walter Reed wouldn’t comment on what products were used during the sessions. In addition to funding classes like this one, the Department of Defense spent more than $84 million on erectile dysfunction drugs in 2014.”